These days a large number of enterprise customers lease their laptops and desktops. A normal enough business practice. But, when that lease it up do they wipe the hard drives? The ever growing number of data breach stories would lead one to expect that it’s not as common as it should be. Joanna Jasper contributed at article to CIO magazine tackling this issue.
From CIO:
At Catawba College, network, computer and information security concerns have been a major focus of our information technology work for the past several years, as evidenced by our campus-wide 802.1x network authentication and our CatNet Connect process to clean and secure student computers before allowing them to connect to the residence hall network.
As we faced the prospect of a hardware refresh for about 500 personal computers on campus, it was only natural for us to be concerned about how to dispose of the outgoing equipment in a secure and environmentally friendly way. For the environment’s sake—and to benefit the community—we decided to donate our used equipment to a local organization that trains middle school and high school students to refurbish computers, which are then donated to needy families. From an information security perspective, it was essential that we ensure all confidential data was completely eliminated from the hard drives in a manner that would preserve the drives.
Sadly not everyone takes the time to think this item through. It may seem like common sense but, as America Airlines can tell you, the devil is in the details.
